Christos Markogiannakis

Criminartist

What is Criminart? 

According to the 19th Century English philosopher Thomas De Quincey, murder can be considered as one of the fine arts.

When the horrible deed is done and there is nothing we can do to prevent it or bring the victim back to life, there is no need to grasp murder by its moral or punitive handle;  This, we leave to priests and Judges. We as plain spectators, stand before a work of art – before a crime scene – in order to enjoy it.
Thus murder can be an aesthetic experience, a sublime one at that.

As a witness to the murder scene (a real-life one or even more a work of art representing one) we are present yet detached from the perpetrator and the victim, vulnerable yet immune to them. We experience terror at a distance,  without the victim's lurid torment of suspense, and unlike the assailant, we face no potential punishment. Unlike the victim we are safe from a physical point of view. Unlike the killer, we face no moral agony. Thus we encounter murder as a sublimated and purely aesthetic trigger.

This aesthetic perspective of murder is the inspiration and the epicentre of Criminart, a movement connecting these two elements (crime and art) in theory and practice.